ANDY MURRAY made it through to the second round of the French Open but was handed a lesson in clay court tennis in his opening match by a player young enough to be a schoolboy.

The Scot, who had been suffering from a throat infection for the past week, eventually overcame 17-year-old Frenchman Jonathan Eysseric in five scary sets to win the first match of his career at Roland Garros.

But for vast swathes of his 6-2 1-6 4-6 6-0 6-2 triumph Murray struggled and admitted: eeI didnft play particularly well and he made me do a lot of running which wasnft the plan. Playing a young guy youfve not seen takes a little bit of time to get used to.

eeBut I never felt I was going to lose the match. I was happy I came through it.ff The British number one revealed he had been on antibiotics since Tuesday and had been forced to cut back his training.

Throat problem or not, the stark facts are that left-handed Eysseric was the youngest player in the menfs draw and at 387 in the world the third-lowest ranked. Not the sort of player who should be giving a tenth seed big problems.

Third seed Novak Djokovic, who looks to be the only player capable of breaking the Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal duopoly of menfs tennis, struggled to a fourset victory over Denis Gremelmayr, winning 4-6 6-3 7-5 6-2.